


Somewhere In Between Winning and Losing

by MistyBeethoven



Series: "Yes, I Really Am This Pathetic!" or "How to Say I Love You With a Story" [20]
Category: The Replacements (2000)
Genre: American Football, Attraction, Awkward Dates, BBW, Boats and Ships, Contest Entry, Contests, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, First Dates, Kissing, Love Stories, Overweight, Self-Indulgent, Self-Insert, Weight Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:47:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22459750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistyBeethoven/pseuds/MistyBeethoven
Summary: After being forced into entering a contest at my local supermarket, I find myself winning a date with the former disgraced and then redeemed football player Shane Falco. Things go horribly wrong after I end up inadvertently insulting the man. When we wind up stranded out in the water on his boat, however, I find that I may have won something unexpected as well: Shane Falco's heart.
Relationships: Shane Falco/Me
Series: "Yes, I Really Am This Pathetic!" or "How to Say I Love You With a Story" [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1589944
Comments: 18
Kudos: 9





	Somewhere In Between Winning and Losing

**Author's Note:**

> If anybody out there thought I was letting Super Bowl Weekend pass without posting "The Replacements" entry to this series they were sadly mistaken. I'm posting it before Sunday, though, before the football madness dies down. Halfway during writing this, I had to go to my local Giant Tiger and by a few things. PJ bottoms were on the list and I ended up buying a pair emblazoned with footballs. Fittingly, I finished writing this wearing them.

There are a few things in life that one should never do.

Buying colored toilet paper is one of them. While it may seem like a good idea at the time, after months of having to use the stuff one soon becomes sick of it. Also, if one is prone to rashes or infections, it does little to help matters. My childhood showed this to me quite well.

It is also a mistake to purchase clothing from Asia online and expect it to actually fit. Unless one has a doll collection and wants a change of attire for some of them the outfits are likely to never see the light of day. Even then, unless you are very proud of said doll collection, they still will probably never be admired, except in private, in the fear of being looked at weirdly should one decide to take them out for a stroll.

One of the biggest things one should avoid, however, is entering a contest that you really don't want to win. There really is no point to it. Prizes of cash are always very appealing because you can always buy whatever you want with the winnings. But if you don't like hot climates you shouldn't really try to win a vacation to Honolulu. And if you can't drive at all, like myself, you shouldn't enter for the chance to be the proud owner of a brand new BMW.

Maybe it all falls back to them saying it's the journey and not the destination but if your destination is prison, Foxy Loxy's den, the sewer or someplace else you'd rather not be it's kind of hard to see the validity of such an optimistic saying.

I should have remembered this when the cashier asked me if I wanted to enter a contest at my local supermarket. Apparently the receipt and $2.00 was all that was needed. I asked what the prize was and the friendly woman on the other side the checkout counter told me that it was a date spent with a local former football champ. She further commented that he was a handsome and very nice man who shopped at the store frequently. When he heard that the supermarket was having a contest in support of the local children's hospital he volunteered to help in anyway he could. The manager of said store decided that an evening of non-sexual prostitution was the best way to do so.

I had forked over the $2.00 not caring about a date with a man I'd never heard of but wanting to help out the children. I desperately didn't want to win, in fact. But what were the chances anyway? Once the local Subway had held a contest where the winner, on top of it, had to correctly guess a number between 1 and 100. Such contests were usually scams and even if they were real, it was very doubtful that I would be the winner.

I was never all that lucky.

And so with the purchase of toilet paper, cat food and garbage bags I won a date with a has been football hero named Shane Falco.

* * *

I had never been on an actual date before and that my first one would be false struck me as fitting with my non-existent luck.

I remembered my sister set to go on her first one with a schoolmate when she was eight. I'd looked at her and my mom talking and the Barbie makeup kit she'd gotten to wear for it. I had sat from the sidelines wondering if I'd ever go on a date one day too. I'd always been overweight and shy and even then the chances struck me as being slimmer than my tubby body. The thought of going out with a boy seemed wonderfully romantic but also very scary at the same time.

Oddly enough my sister had cancelled, too afraid to go on her first date too.

No dates ever came for me. Not that boys didn't like me. Men often don't get the credit they deserve and can be interested in somebody that isn't a model on the cover of a swimsuit magazine. But I was always too shy or uninterested in the guy to say yes. When my class had been shocked that an older boy from another school had centered on me as the girl he fancied over the others , I had been flattered but terrified too. I had intentionally missed any of the boy's other visits, scared I'd only disappoint him somehow eventually.

I feared the same thing with this man I had never knew existed before, as well, even if I'd never see him again.

* * *

When Shane first laid eyes on me at the restaurant scheduled for our date, he didn't show much in the way of disgust or disappointment which was a relief. I must have been what he expected: an overweight woman, younger than himself, with long hair a common shade of brown and green eyes. He smiled politely and offered me his hand. As he did this, a photographer took our photo and I had no idea if it was for the paper or for the supermarket's manager to display on the wall of his store. I second guessed my choice in clothing, a black pair of pants and a pink sweater and wondered what the caption would say and how many people would wonder what on earth such a good looking guy thought about being saddled with a butterball like me.

Shane Falco was handsome. The cashier had been right about that. He had longish dark brown hair which fell to a little above his strong wide shoulders. His eyes were a nice shade of brown and he had a nice smile. They always said a smile like his would make you weak in the knees but the only place I felt it was in my heart, which raced a bit faster whenever he flashed it in my direction. The cameraman soon vanished and we were left alone to eat in the 3 1/2 star restaurant by ourselves. Well if you didn't count the other people eating around us, that is.

We ordered our meal, it came and Shane started to talk about his football career, his embarrassment at the Sugar Bowl and his redemption playing for the Washington Sentinels when the regular players went on strike. He'd led them to win the big game and it seemed a memory which brought the handsome ex-football legend some joy as his smile reappeared more often as he remembered it.

Then I did something to mess it all up like I usually do.

"That's wonderful," I stated genuinely. "The only thing I don't understand is what a sugar bowl had to do with any of it? Was there a supper or something?"

Shane Falco looked at me first like I was joking. When he realized I was being earnest, however, his smiled faded.

"You don't know who the Hell I am, do you?" he asked, tossing his napkin on to the red checkered table cloth. "I've been talking about things you couldn't care less about."

"Errr...uhhhh," came my intelligent reply.

"Why the Hell did you enter a contest to win a date with some guy you'd never heard of anyway?"

"Well it was for a children's charity!" I exclaimed. "I never thought I'd win! The only thing I know about football is that it used to take off the making of the Toronto Santa Claus parade special each year on Global when I was a kid. I'd be all excited and then I'd have to watch a game that seemed to stop every few seconds before it even started again and was terribly boring. I hated it."

The words were out and I knew how horrible they sounded even to me. I had successfully fumbled the ball. But when you're hopelessly shy things don't often come out the way they should and cause you reason to feel the shame always ready to darken your cheeks.

He glared at me from across our two steak dinners, two glasses of coke and some garlic bread. "It was terribly _boring_ and you _hated_ it."

I realized I had just insulted one of the things he loved and the centre point of some of the highlights of his life.

"I'm sorry...I just really don't want to be here," I said only making things worse.

Shane Falco breathed in deeply and I felt my eyes widen in terror.

"Fine," he stated. "Let's get the meal over as fast as we can so then I can take you fishing and we can end this whole thing."

I gasped.

He eyed me in contempt. "Let me guess, you don't like fishing either?"

I slowly shook my head and he just as slowly brought a hand to his face and started to rub it in weary exasperation.

* * *

We'd been sitting on Shane Falco's boat for about an hour and a half, a fishing pole in my hand and only miles of vacant water around us. Shane had changed into an old football jersey and jeans, no longer seeking to impress, and was nursing his third beer, staring blankly out ahead of him at the waves which gently rocked the boat. I had tried to make small talk but had no great success. The hero of the Washington Sentinels wasn't about to let go of his wounded pride and feelings.

At one point, he rose from his chair in order to turn on the radio.

Gloria Gaynor singing about how she would survive suddenly blasted through the air. Shane Falco cursed and quickly turned it off before returning to sit down, crankily at my side.

"You don't like that song, I take it," I remarked.

"Let's just say, if I have to listen to it I'll likely throw the radio overboard," he replied, taking a swig from his beer bottle.

"After my parents divorced, that was my mom's favorite song," I commented. "It was also number one on Billboard around when I was born."

"Good for you," he said, taking yet another drink and refusing to look at me.

He placed the bottle down as I glanced behind me casting the radio with a gaze which could only be offered when somebody was missing a song they wanted to hear. I turned back to find Falco staring at me, his large arms folded. "You will survive," he told me with a smirk.

Knowing I had hurt a guy who seemed genuinely nice, I decided to confront my own timidity and try to bandage up the wound between us. "I'm sorry for everything I said back at the restaurant," I apologized. "I am incredibly shy. I have something called AVPD. My words come out all wrong. I actually like being here with you and that's part of the problem. But social stuff will always be a problem for me and that's why I never should have entered the contest."

I looked out across the water. "When I turned 12," I continued after a heavy sigh, "my mom thought it would be this great idea to have this guy dressed up in an Alf costume come to my door and give me balloons. Her heart was in the right place but I've never quite understood how she didn't understand me enough to know that being fat and shy the last thing I wanted on my Birthday was some strange guy coming to see me and having him kiss my cheek as she took a Polaroid of it, forever immortalizing my humiliation. But, I guess, that's what moms do and why there are so many naked baby photos."

I could tell that Shane Falco was still looking at me but I couldn't turn to look at him in return, so I looked down at my hands clutching the fishing pole instead.

"Well you are like if that guy took off his Alf mask and there was a sweet and good looking guy underneath; it would have been even _worse_. Because then I would have been attracted to him but it would have been pretend and just a job for him to get over and done with. And all of this is like that... just a date that's going to end and we'll never see each other again."

I stared at the reel on the pole and remembered how I used to play with the one on my father's expensive fishing gear before the divorce. How I would just enjoy endlessly spinning it to see how wonderfully quickly and smoothly it moved.

Suddenly I saw, from the corner of my eye, Shane rising from his chair and returning to the radio which he begrudgingly proceeded to turn on. The song was almost over but it was the thought that counted, I knew, as the man came to sit beside me once more.

"Thank you."

"No problem," he returned.

After a few more minutes of not catching anything I tried to cast the line out again but in my clumsiness the line went awry and the end of it landed on my date: I ended up hooking Shane Falco. We laughed for a bit and I tried to unhook him.

"You're the finest thing out here to catch anyway," I shyly joked, my chubby fingers trying to set the hook free from his fabric.

"Well now you have to eat me," he remarked as he stared down at me and I felt the color rising to my cheeks, knowing it sounded suggestive.

"Or I can throw you back in if you don't behave," I warned.

The hook suddenly out, Falco continued to look at me and my rosy cheeked countenance. "Look Erin," he finally started to say after an awkward silence. "I have to apologize. I wasn't very much looking forward to a date, either, even a charity motivated one."

I met his eyes, both curious and concerned.

Falco glanced to his side and then down at the floor of the boat beneath us. "I broke up with my girlfriend a few months back. Well, actually, she dumped me for some guy she knew when she was young. I haven't really thought about dating since...I only agreed, like you did, because it was to help the children's hospital. This is my first date since the break up."

I gently touched his cheek, feeling sorry for him. "Thank you for letting it be with me," I stated. "Can I tell you something?"

"What's that?"

"This is my first date ever."

He smiled that beautiful smile again and started to laugh. "I guess, you've got me beat."

I laughed with him until I saw Shane finally figuring out in his mind that if this was my first date than it likely meant that I hadn't done a few other things also.

"Look, we should head back now," he said after clearing his throat.

It seemed as good a move as any, the sky darkening and it already getting to be a bit windy and chilly. However, when my date tried to start the motor it failed to turn on. We soon discovered that the fuel tank was empty; we were stuck out on the ocean and subsequently had to wait until the coast guard or someone else sailing by found us.

* * *

"No wonder Annabelle left me," Shane stated angrily. "I'm a screw up."

We were in the cabin of his boat. He was sitting on the floor as I lay in his bed, trying to stay warm.

Falco ran a hand through his floppy hair. "How could I forget to check the fuel tank for gas?" he asked, his teeth chattering slightly.

"Get in here," I ordered, lifting the blanket and offering him the opportunity to join me. "We can share body heat."

Although he at first looked reluctant, the ex-Sentinel soon scurried over and climbed in beside me. As he started to hold me, he looked almost embarrassed and I could read from his expression that he kind of liked the fact that I was soft, warm and squishy. 

"Warmer?" I inquired.

"Much," he answered, squeezing me a little tighter. 

We lay in one another's arms for a bit, Shane placing his head between my neck and shoulder. He started to rub his chin against my skin and I shivered; an action that had nothing to do with the cold night air and the cooling temperature of the cabin.

"Erin," my date finally broke the silence. "When you said that this was your first date...have you..."

"I haven't even been kissed," I whispered and he immediately made the statement history.

His lips were soft and his motion gentle. My hands moved to feel his strong back as the kiss became a bit more bold. With a move as smooth and quick as my dad's fishing reel, Shane Falco was on top of me, his lips still searching mine. I surprised myself by letting my hands crawl up his Jersey with the #16 on it. Exploring his stomach and chest, I smiled, slightly disturbing the kiss.

"What are you smiling for?" Shane asked, smiling also as he planted a series of kisses on my face.

"I'm a big girl," I replied. "You're a big framed guy...I've always liked that."

His grin turning decidedly naughty, Shane Falco knelt over me and pulled the Jersey over his head and threw it to the floor. I could see his chest now clearly. It was beautiful in the bit of moonlight seeping into the cabin from the window. He was a hulking man but not muscular which was another turn on for me. My hands ran over his stomach from the scar there to his chest. I touched it and felt that his nipples were erect against my palm.

"You're cold again," I said softly.

"Not for long," he stated, reaching over to the drawer by the bed.

I knew he was trying to grab for condoms and felt myself blushing as I noticed for the first time the bulge in his jeans. I pushed my head back and looked above me in shyness and Shane saw my sudden bashfulness. He seemed to be even more turned on by this and started to forego getting the protection momentarily to kiss my throat now fully offered to him. I moaned, feeling the contact all the way to between my legs, a feeling that intensified as Shane's hands came to my breasts. The athlete simultaneously tried to continue his caresses and while starting to remove my pants.

Then we heard the sound of a boat finally nearing, preventing Shane Falco's act of selling himself for a date from including sex after all.

* * *

Being rescued by the coast guard kind of put a dampner on our passion. As Shane took me home in his old truck, he could hardly look at me but seemed sheepish over the fact that he had gotten carried away on what was meant to be only a store promotion and charitable cause all at once.

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I shouldn't have done that."

I couldn't find the words to tell him that I was more sorry that he hadn't done more.

To try to change the subject and make him feel better, outside of my house, I asked for his autograph and he smiled again more freely. 

"You want a has been's scribble on a piece of paper?" he asked.

I nodded happily, standing outside of his truck window and Falco searched around the front seat for something to sign. He finally chose the receipt for our meal. 

"The supermarket footed it," Shane said after signing his name and handing it to me. "Except for the tip."

"You're very generous," I praised, reading the slip and meant it.

The signature read:

_**To Erin,** _

_**You got me hooked** _

_**Love,** _

_**Shane Falco** _

The owner of that name looked at me oddly and I felt almost devastated that the evening was about to end. "Goodnight," he suddenly said, leaned out of the window, kissed me on my lips and then hastily drove down the street at a speed which didn't seem to pay any respect to the legally dictated limit. I watched him driving away, the receipt in my hand and tears in my eyes.

* * *

A few days later, I was shopping at the same damned supermarket, having had to ignore the giant photograph of Shane Falco and myself plastered on the wall near the checkout and the resulting stares of recognition, when in the parking lot, I heard somebody calling out my voice in a familiar voice.

"ERIN!" Shane Falco in person and not a mere photographic image called out. 

I finally found him resting against the back of his truck. The man had been constantly in my thoughts since our fake date. I'd started to wonder what had really happened in the boat, telling myself he had just been starved from a little physical intimacy since his break-up with Annabelle. The first available option had been a shy, fat woman that had absolutely no experience in that sort of thing. His guilt following our interrupted lovemaking had probably been due to the fact that he had been taking advantage of me but hadn't truly cared. That after the moment had passed, I was just an overweight girl that had won a date with him but whom he'd never think about seeing otherwise.

That was what my brain had been yelling at me ever since that night anyway. So I was happy when Shane called me over instead of trying to avoid me altogether.

I walked towards him and he made me even happier by what he told me next.

"I've been looking for you all day. You weren't at your house so I thought I'd try this place; you know the place that brought us together. I've been sitting out here waiting to see if I could catch you. Looks like I was finally lucky."

"The way you drove off after kissing me like that I thought you didn't like me," I stated.

He looked horrified at the confession and gently grabbed my shoulders. "No. I liked you _too_ much. When that coast guard showed up, I felt like I had lost out on more than I had during any game. Even the stupid Sugar Bowl. But then I suddenly felt guilty as hell. I thought I'd overstepped my bounds...that I looked like a sleazeball who was just after your virginity."

I looked up hopefully into his kind brown eyes. "You were worried what I was thinking about _you_?"

He nodded now still looking a little timid about my thoughts for him. 

"Shane Falco, you should know right now that I wish I'd won a lifetime with you and not just a day," I revealed.

That beautiful smile on his lips, the football player moved his hands from off of my shoulders and to around my back at the waist, pulling me closer. "That's doable, Erin" he stated.

"You honestly like _me_?" I asked.

Another nod. "You're sweet and kind and adorably shy. Truth is your name may have been the one that won the contest, but I'm the one who feels like the real winner."

I shook my head in disagreement. "I was the one that accidentally entered a contest with the only prize I've ever wanted to win," I smiled widely now also, placing my chubby arms around his shoulders which were strong enough to take them.

"I guess, that makes us both lucky," Shane Falco stated as he pulled me towards him for a kiss, making me feel like I'd just scored a touchdown even though I still hardly knew a thing about football.


End file.
